- `kubectl apply` now coerces `null` values for labels and annotations in manifests to empty string values, 
consistent with typed JSON metadata decoding, rather than dropping all labels and annotations ([#129257](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/129257), [@liggitt](https://github.com/liggitt)) [SIG API Machinery]

### Feature

   * close or flush the reader.
   *
   * <p>This is identical to {@link #copy(Readable, Appendable)} but optimized for these specific
   * types. CharBuffer has poor performance when being written into or read out of so round tripping
   * all the bytes through the buffer takes a long time. With these specialized types we can just
   * use a char array.
   *
   * @param from the object to read from
   * @param to the object to write to

* Implement graceful shutdown of the kube-apiserver by waiting for open connections to finish before exiting. Moreover, the audit backend will stop dropping events on shutdown. ([#53695](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/53695), [@hzxuzhonghu](https://github.com/hzxuzhonghu))

- Improved memory usage of kube-apiserver by dropping`.metadata.managedFields` field that self-requested informers of kube-apiserver didn't need. ([#124667](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/124667), [@linxiulei](https://github.com/linxiulei)) [SIG API Machinery]

  for the service, but there is at least one Terminating pod for that service on the node,
  then kube-proxy will send the traffic to the Terminating pod rather than dropping it. This
  patches up a race condition between when a pod is killed and when the external load

    return new ListenerCallQueue.Event<Listener>() {
      @Override
      public void call(Listener listener) {
        listener.stopping(from);
      }

      @Override
      public String toString() {
        return "stopping({from = " + from + "})";
      }
    };
  }

  private final Monitor monitor = new Monitor();

- Fixed a race condition in `kube-proxy` when using LocalModeNodeCIDR, to avoid dropping Services traffic if the object node is recreated when `kube-proxy` is starting. ([#118499](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/118499), [@aojea](https://github.com/aojea))

     * Called when the service transitions to the {@linkplain State#STOPPING STOPPING} state. The
     * only valid values for {@code from} are {@linkplain State#STARTING STARTING} or {@linkplain
     * State#RUNNING RUNNING}. This occurs when {@link Service#stopAsync} is called.
     *
     * @param from The previous state that is being transitioned from.
     */
    public void stopping(State from) {}

    /**

     * @return an {@link Iterable} wrapping the enumeration
     */
    public static <T> Iterable<T> iterable(final Enumeration<T> enumeration) {
        assertArgumentNotNull("enumeration", enumeration);

        return () -> new EnumerationIterator<>(enumeration);
    }

    /**
     * Constructs an instance of an {@link Iterator} wrapping an {@link Enumeration}.
     *

    return new ListenerCallQueue.Event<Listener>() {
      @Override
      public void call(Listener listener) {
        listener.stopping(from);
      }

      @Override
      public String toString() {
        return "stopping({from = " + from + "})";
      }
    };
  }

  private final Monitor monitor = new Monitor();